Real Life Intervenes

Sadly, even the thrill of electoral victory can’t change the fact that the war goes on in Iraq in its typical violent, maddening way with dozens injured (and several killed) by car bombs in Baghdad. Carl Levin’s working on some kind of resolution to indicate congressional opposition to an open-ended military presence, but based on the vote count for the last Levin Resolution on Iraq, I’m not sure he can secure a majority even in the new congress.

A big divide among Democrats in the coming years will, I think, have a bit less to do with the substance of Iraq policy than just their analysis of what’s going to happen. A lot of Democrats seem to think that this very thorny problem will, conveniently, just kind of go away without them needing to do anything about it. Either Jim Baker or John Warner or Bush 41 or someone is going to clean up the mess. Since Don Rumsfeld did wind up getting fired, I’m not going to promise people that these scenarios won’t come to pass, but it continues to strike me as unlikely. Bush is a very stubborn guy, the conservative movement is very committed to endless bloodshed, etc. Most likely, if we want to see our policies in Iraq seriously change it’ll have to be — surprise! — the opposition political party that forces the changes.